


Carefully out of Nowhere

by kitestringer



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-25
Updated: 2010-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-09 03:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitestringer/pseuds/kitestringer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius and Remus and the onset of spring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carefully out of Nowhere

**Author's Note:**

> Marauders Era preslash. Thanks to [](http://kaynyne.livejournal.com/profile)[**kaynyne**](http://kaynyne.livejournal.com/) for comments and [](http://pollitt.livejournal.com/profile)[**pollitt**](http://pollitt.livejournal.com/) for encouragement.
> 
> Originally posted in April 2007 in the Wellymuck LJ community. Inspired by [this prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/wellymuck/84236.html).

There was a day each year when spring _truly_ came, and it had little to do with the precise timing of the Vernal Equinox or any other such thing, Sirius thought. It was more to do with a quality of the air — that first breath, as you walked outside, with a flavour that made you dizzy with a grey winter's worth of lust for freedom and mischief, and made going back inside and sitting in a classroom unthinkable. If he were forced to describe the flavour of the air that day, Sirius decided after giving it a bit of thought, he would say it was a bit like the flesh of a very ripe peach, slick across your tongue, tartness and sweetness struggling for attention.

'A ripe peach,' Remus said sceptically. 'Aren't peaches more of a summer fruit?'

'Did I say anything about actual peaches? No, I don't think I did.' Sirius pulled a blade of grass from the ground and wound it tightly around his finger. 'I'm trying to be descriptive. It's not as though I think a load of ripe peaches appear everywhere on the first real day of spring.'

'But peaches?' Remus said, in the sort of voice that was going to give Sirius no choice but to swat him within the next few moments. 'Spring's usually associated with new plants coming up after the winter. Shouldn't it taste more...leafy?'

'Would you stop thinking with your mind, Moony?'

'Oh, sorry.' Remus crossed one leg over the other and toed off one shoe, then switched feet and toed off the other. His socks had been mended and stretched so many times there was almost nothing to them anymore; Sirius could see the outline of his toes. 'Anyway, that's all very poetic. I never knew you had it in you.'

'It's the Animagus transformation,' Sirius said. 'Everything is a taste and smell to me now. It's hard to tell taste and smell apart sometimes, actually.'

'Even when you're human?' Remus said. He suddenly sat upright and looked around, skittish, as though he'd only just remembered they shouldn't talk about this where others might hear. His nervousness filled Sirius's senses, the way certain things could now, like the fear in the copper-hot blood of the rabbits he chased, or Moony's sharp, cinnamon hunger for human flesh under a full moon, a scent that sometimes made Sirius bite hard into the fur of the wolf's neck to draw his attention back where it ought to be.

'Don't know if I'm ever fully human anymore,' Sirius murmured, finally, lingering over the memory of soft fur against his tongue.

Remus rolled his eyes. 'Right. Well, I don't know about the flavours of the air; for me, I suppose it's the sunlight.' He lifted a hand to shade his eyes and looked up into the sky, as though to verify the properties of today's sun. 'Everything seems a more vivid colour in spring. And I have to wait a bit longer for nightfall each full moon.'

Sirius rolled onto his side to face him. Other people seemed happy when spring came, he realised, but Remus never had. 'You hate having to wait.'

'Yeah, but not for the same reason you do,' Remus said. His smile was wan, humourless. 'The only thing worse than the transformation is anticipating it.'

'But it's different now, Moony,' Sirius said, tugging at Remus's sleeve until he looked at him. 'I mean, knowing we'll be with you. It _has_ to be better.'

'Oh, yes,' Remus said quickly. 'Yes, it's very different now.' He held Sirius's gaze and looked as though he wanted to say more, but then he closed his mouth and turned away again, his attention apparently caught by a robin landing nearby.

'That's what I thought.' Sirius yawned and stretched, and Remus watched him, Sirius could feel him watching him, and it only made him want more. He'd do a better job keeping Moony distracted from now on. On a moment's whim, right then and there in the noonday sunlight, he changed into a dog, just for the unmatchable feeling of rolling around in the grass and the taste of Remus's sparkling, panic-tinged laughter.


End file.
